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Scott Crawford shows off the 2016 version of his Keep Building Jackson! Lego city.

Mack Sullivan

It's just the ticket for any Scrooge having trouble embracing the holiday spirit. Take them to see the Keep Building Jackson! display at the Arts Center of Mississippi, in Jackson, made of more than 200,000 Lego bricks.

The mastermind behind the intricate city re-creation is Scott Crawford, PhD, who was diagnosed with progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) in 2002 at age 37. The exhibit is his vision of the state's capital city as a clean, safe, pedestrian-friendly community that welcomes everyone — including those with mobility challenges.

Now in its eighth year, the display will include a new addition in 2017, a Lego replica of the historic Lamar Life Building, which was built in 1924.

Dr. Crawford, now 51, started the Lego project adjacent to his home Christmas tree in 2008. He moved it to the arts center in 2009, and it now requires 23 tables, each three feet by six feet, for display.

"His iconic buildings are really nearly perfect matches," says James McGowan, District Two Commander of the Jackson Police Department's Patrol Operations Division. "There's no way to put into words how massive they are — and Scott is so meticulous about everything he's done with them."

Three Relapses in a Row, but No Diagnosis

Gifted in both the creative and scientific arts, Crawford obtained his graduate degree in clinical neuropsychology and practiced for five years before experiencing his first MS symptoms.

While living in Miami, when he first reported them, "the doctors thought I was crazy," he says.

"I was working two jobs and putting in 70-hour weeks, along with cycling long distances twice a week. Inside, though, I knew that something was amiss."

First, he developed shingles, the painful skin rash caused by the virus that causes chickenpox. "Shingles doesn't happen to 33-year-olds," he says. (It’s most common in adults over age 50.)

Now he thinks maybe that first shingles outbreak triggered his first MS exacerbation, when he suddenly had trouble walking and subsequently was hospitalized.

He had another exacerbation three months later and was out of work for three weeks. He recovered, but six months later, in April 2000, he had a third episode that paralyzed him from the eyes down and lasted 13 hours. He underwent an MRI, but the physicians who studied it said they saw nothing unusual.

After several months of recovery, he was still unable to work. He found himself in and out of the hospital for two more years.

Tick Paralysis and Mononucleosis Precede MS

Finally, in summer 2002, Crawford sought out a world-renowned neurologist who diagnosed him with MS by recognizing very subtle lesions in that earlier MRI. He now had to formulate a plan B for his life, which meant moving to Jackson, where he had family and friends.

Since then, Crawford has pondered why he developed MS. He wonders whether getting tick paralysis when he was 11 might have contributed to it. Tick paralysis — which causes loss of muscle control and paralysis — is caused by a neurotoxin released from a tick’s salivary glands while it feeds on a host.

Although there is no scientific evidence connecting tick bites to MS, scientists have long studied the similarities of MS and Lyme disease, the latter caused by a bacteria carried by the deer tick. The National Multiple Sclerosis Society says Lyme disease can cause delayed neurologic symptoms that mimic those of MS, including on MRI scans and in analysis of cerebrospinal fluid, the fluid retrieved in a spinal tap.

"The worst symptom is this invisible, massive fatigue," he says. "I have to sleep 12 hours a day and can only function for a few hours. I liken it to the way I'd collapse after I'd run a 26-mile marathon."

In 2002 he underwent chemotherapy, a treatment of choice at that time that caused toxicity to the heart. "It did give me a life worth living then, but I exceeded my lifetime maximum dose," he says.

His mother lives 20 minutes away, and his aunt and sister, only a mile away. They all help him when he needs it, he says.

Accessible City Exhibit Is a Community Effort

Crawford also gets help annually from Commander McGowan's Boy Scout Troop 99, which transports the Legos from Crawford's house to downtown. "Using a police escort, we use four different vehicles filled with Scott's crates and boxes," says McGowan. "Then we put everything exactly where he wants it."

McGowan lauds Crawford's advocacy for accessible public transportation for all of Jackson's residents, especially others who are disabled. "Just like he wants his display to be the 'perfect' Jackson, he wants our sidewalks and transportation services to be excellent, and ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant," McGowan says.

Crawford admits he's invested thousands of dollars in his Lego project, although some individuals and the Greater Jackson Arts Council have provided donations for which he's very grateful. And of course, he's already thinking about what to add on next in 2018.

"Like Walt Disney said, you've got to be able to imagine something in order to work for it. And it's gotta be a big dream, or otherwise it isn't worth working for," says Crawford.

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